Switches to Litecoin Because of Bitcoin’s Big Transaction Backlog?

Hurray for the Chikun! After the recordbreak of Bitcoin and the mania around countless ICO’s this year, it was Litecoin ‘s turn today to attract the moonboots: The coin with the nickname ‘De Chikun’ rose 55% in 24 hours to more than 160 EURO. More than EUR 400 million was invested in Litecoin at the GDAX exchange . Bitfinex and Bittrex did not lag behind much, which is enough for smart traders (with a lot of budget) to make use of that price difference.

Litecoin is one of my favorite coins and almost standard in my wallet. Why? Because almost everyone goes to Litecoin when there is a decrease in Bitcoin. Very predictable. At the same time, the currency has been slowly but surely building up its value in recent months and it was a relatively stable investment.

That sounds nice but only a year ago Litecoin languished to around 4 EURO, where it seemed to stay forever. The 4 EURO border seemed eternal and the coin was nicknamed ‘The Rock’.

Charlie Lee The creator of Litecoin is Charlie Lee. Litecoin was one of the first cryptocurrencies after Bitcoin and Namecoin and found its usefulness in 2017 after standing still. Some see it as a test area for Bitcoin improvements.

Charlie Lee leaves Coinbase Lee left Coinbase at the beginning of 2017 to fully focus on Litecoin. This happened around the same time that Bitcoin had to deal with the apparently eternal drama about the implementation of Segregated Witness . thereafter, Litecoin securely implemented the ‘Segwit’ upgrade and was the first currency to perform an atomic swap . They are actively working on implementing Lightning network upgrades. he rapid price increase of Litecoin coincided with Charlie’s performances on a number of television channels, which may indicate that mass interest in cryptocurrency is at its peak. With Coinbase as one of the most important stock exchanges in the US, the addition of Litecoin (and only a limited number of other currencies) seems to be a success for them.

Another reason for the current ‘run’ may be due to technical issues with bitcoins. And the Ethereum blockchain is also not the solution because it can not handle the volume produced by CryptoKitties . Or is it because Litecoin proves useful for moving assets between different exchanges?